After Paris, everyone needed a redemption trip, and Italy seemed promising. Our destination was Palermo, Sicily, and although I was unfamiliar with the name of the city, I definitely knew that anywhere in Sicily would be an adventure, plus I was pumped to practice my Italian.
Well it turns out that I really don't speak much Italian, so it was a very good thing that we had the man of many named, Brandon Victor Paolo (BVP), with us as primary translator. As I've discovered, I can understand most of what I hear in the language, so I didn't need a translator as badly in that direction, but when the time comes for me to speak, I suddenly find myself incapable of language production. "Je... euh... io... uh, voglio... oh shoot, mi dispiace" is about as eloquent as I got in the first day. Thanks to listening to BVP, I could get by in a restaurant by the end of the weekend, but were all more than content to let him take the reigns in most all Italian speaking endeavors.
Although the group as a whole left quite a bit to be desired with Italian skills, we were still more than capable of confusing sicilians by switching between French and English while talking amongst ourselves. On our first night in Palermo, we went to a little restaurant for dinner, and although we spoke almost exclusively in English amongst ourselves, the waiter translated several food items into French for us. The next morning, BVP and I had to stop at a grocery store at which we needed the help of an employee standing behind a counter. As we stood there waiting for her acknowledgement, we had been speaking to each other in English but a few seconds after switching to French, the employee was too confused to keep from looking up and finally helping us.
Evidently Italians like the French better than they like Americans. On our final night, we all went to a pizza parlor at which BVP and I teamed up to speak Italian to the cashier (my rendition of the language being much more broken than his, of course), and we spoke a combination of French and English to each other, causing the cashier to proceed to refer to me as madame for the remainder of the time that we were there, although she referred to BVP with an italian title.
Pizza was not the only stereotypical italian dish that we consumed there, but it was probably the one that we had the most of. Fun fact: all food in Sicily, or at least in Palermo, is incredible. Like a team of professional eaters, we worked our way through several types of pizza, pasta, cannoli, cappuccino, and aperitivo.
Italians know how to do food right. So does much of Europe in my experience thus far, but Italy just does it really exceptionally well. Italian food is as delicious as Derek Zoolander is good looking: really really ridiculously so.
Another thing that Italy does exceptionally well is everything. Maybe it was just the comparison with the prior weekend's parisian disasters, but everything in Italy seemed really idyllic. The rain was gorgeous, all of the architecture was beautiful, and the nature of the place was breathtaking. We were able to pick fresh oranges from a public garden, and although they were tart upon tasting them, they were thoroughly satisfying to have obtained.
The people there were also really friendly. When it was clear that the group didn't know where we were going, people would come up to us and ask us if we were looking for a given destination which they always hit on the mark, then told us where it was. Palermo was great.
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